Our new Veeam beast server arrived this morning. 2 1TB drives (for the OS and Veeam) and 10 4TB drives for the Veeam data repository. I've got many RAID options when i'm setting my array on the HP management software but i wanted to know if there's anything you'd specifically recommend. Our backups will most likely take place during the evening after hours and we're looking at about 10-11 TB worth of VMWare vms. The Veeam server will be connected to a dedicated switch where our SANs are.

HP prompts me to go 0,1,5,6,50 or 60 where 60 will leave me with 20TB out of the 40.

16 Replies

RAID6 should be fine, but as above are you then offloading these to tape or somewhere else off site?

While you may want 10-11TB of backup space, remember daily backups will add to this, and then you have guest indexing if you want file level restores, reverse/incremental and full backups - you'll need space for the merges and any synthetics to be created in.

If you need 11TB raw for existing kit, also add about 10-15% for each daily backup chain.

I would leave out the 1TB drives and RAID-6 the 4TB drives. Make a separate partition for your OS and Veeam if you feel that's necessary, but do it on the RAID-6. That way, if you need more space, you can pop in two more 4TB drives and expand the array.

I would leave out the 1TB drives and RAID-6 the 4TB drives. Make a separate partition for your OS and Veeam if you feel that's necessary, but do it on the RAID-6. That way, if you need more space, you can pop in two more 4TB drives and expand the array.

Virtualise all workloads, stick the hypervisor on a USB/SD Card and fill all the bays with 4TB drives

Once you have you first backup done Veeam is doing CBT so the write penalty wont be that horrific especially as you arent backing up that much data. I have a branch with a similar sized VM size, its mixed usage and it will run a daily backup in 40 minutes to a modest sized NAS in RAID 6

But agree with above comments, if you dont know how much data you have changing or have a view on restore points/retention policy you have potentially purchased something too small. If you want 3 years of data and have higher than average data change rates you might be shopping again sooner than you think!

But as far as your actual question that size is well the safe limits for RAID 6

Virtualise all workloads, stick the hypervisor on a USB/SD Card and fill all the bays with 4TB drives

Once you have you first backup done Veeam is doing CBT so the write penalty wont be that horrific especially as you arent backing up that much data. I have a branch with a similar sized VM size, its mixed usage and it will run a daily backup in 40 minutes to a modest sized NAS in RAID 6

But agree with above comments, if you dont know how much data you have changing or have a view on restore points/retention policy you have potentially purchased something too small. If you want 3 years of data and have higher than average data change rates you might be shopping again sooner than you think!

But as far as your actual question that size is well the safe limits for RAID 6

I think his practice is to have a physical Veeam server with c: (OSe, RAID 1, 2x 1TB) and d: (Veeambak, RAID 10, 10x 4TB).

But SAM proposed that he uses physical Veeam server with OBR (RAID 6, 10x 4TB) and then partition using the RAID controller to c: & d: (sizes as per required, recommend around 200GB for c:\ & max for d:).

.....

Unless you do a real world test....you cannot really quantify RAID 6 vs RAID 10 to minutes or hours....

If you have already purchased the HDD, I would recommend that you set the RAIDs as follows c: (OSe, RAID 1, 2x 1TB) and d: (Veeambak, RAID 6, 10x 4TB) if you want to have a real world test of the performance to suit your Backup Window (10TB within 10 hours...2100hrs to 0900hrs).

If the backup is taking too long, then redo the d: to RAID 10 (10x 4TB) to see if the increase in performance allows you to complete the backup within the Backup Window.

Are you following 3-2-1 so you'll have a copy of your backups somewhere else?

Unf' we do not at this point but it will come in the near future. The server I am currently talking about is our 1 and only backup repository.

Hey,

You can offload your data to Cloud to follow 3-2-1 rule. Since you are already using Veeam check StarWind Cloud VTL for Veeam. It will add offsite backups to your backup infrastructure. You can offload your data to AWS S3 and Glacier. Important thing to mention is VTL format, which will add additional protection against ransomware. I will leave useful for you links here:

Our new Veeam beast server arrived this morning. 2 1TB drives (for the OS and Veeam) and 10 4TB drives for the Veeam data repository. I've got many RAID options when i'm setting my array on the HP management software but i wanted to know if there's anything you'd specifically recommend. Our backups will most likely take place during the evening after hours and we're looking at about 10-11 TB worth of VMWare vms. The Veeam server will be connected to a dedicated switch where our SANs are.

HP prompts me to go 0,1,5,6,50 or 60 where 60 will leave me with 20TB out of the 40.

Any recommendations?

RAID10 if you'll do lots of reversed incremental backups, RAID6 if you don't do a lot of them or don't do reversed incremental at all.

You can use DPACK with your current backups repository and estimate your future workload.